HMS Herald (1806)

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Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: HMS Herald
Ordered: 12 July 1805
Builder: Carver and Corney, Littlehampton
Laid down: December 1805
Launched: 27 December 1806
Completed: 1 April 1807 at Portsmouth Dockyard
Commissioned: March 1807
Out of service: Broken up 9 September 1817
General characteristics
Class and type: 18-gun Cormorant-class sloop
Tons burthen: 429 38/94 bm
Length: 108 ft 10 in (33.2 m) (overall)
90 ft 11.5 in (27.7 m) (keel)
Beam: 29 ft 9.5 in (9.1 m)
Depth of hold: 8 ft 11.5 in (2.73 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Sloop
Complement: 121
Armament:
  • Upper deck: 16 x 32pdr carronades;
    Quarter deck: 6 x 18pdr carronades;
    Forecastle: 2 x 6pdrs and 2 x 18pdr carronades

HMS Herald was an 18-gun ship-sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, launched in 1806 at Littlehampton. In 1810 she was reclassed as a 20-gun sixth rate ship (but without being re-armed), and again re-rated as 24 guns in 1817, just before she was broken up.

Herald entered service in 1806 under Captain G. M. Hony and was immediately deployed to the Mediterranean, where in 1807 she was ordered to cruise off Corfu in the early stages of the Adriatic campaign. Herald attacked French shipping off the island and later in the year cruised off the Dardanelles before returning to the Adriatic off Otranto, attacking a number of coastal merchant vessels with success.

On 25 October 1807, the 20-gun HMS Herald was off Otranto when she found an armed trabaccolo anchored under the fortress. Despite resistance, Herald's boats cut-out the vessel, which turned out to be the French privateer Cesar, armed with four 6-pounders. The Cesar was sailing from Ancona to Corfu with a cargo of rice and flour.

In 1808 Captain George Jackson took command and operated off the Italian coasts, capturing or destroying over 40 French and Italian merchant ships during the year.

By 1812, Herald was serving in the West Indies in the Leeward Islands. There she captured the French ship Venus. In 1813 Captain Clement Milward took command of Herald off Halifax, Nova Scotia. Operating off the American coast during the War of 1812, Milward capture two French and four American vessels.

In November 1817, after the war's end, the Herald was broken up at Chatham Naval Dockyard.

Notes

References

  • British Warships in the Age of Sail: 1793-1817, Rif Winfield, Seaforth Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.